While the rest of the world debated global warming, Roy
Nageak watched the ice melt and recede in his Arctic backyard. Nageak, an
Inuit, lives in the northernmost settlement in Alaska. Growing up, he recalls that there
was "always ice." There were great pads of ice that were solid and many feet
thick" ... But Nageak and other Inuit, who live a world away from burning smokestacks and traffic jams are among the first victims of global warming. And
human rights groups say the Inuit case mirrors the plight of other populations
around the globe who are expected to face the ramifications of climate change
sooner, and more harshly, than the countries most responsible for the gases
linked to global warming."Now, we are lucky to get four feet of ice because of what is
happening outside our region," Nageak said. "It's a lifestyle that is
prevalent in another society that is so far away from us, and it's affecting
our way of life."

A 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment by international scientists
found that "climate changes are being experienced particularly intensely
in the Arctic " and that the "Inuit
face major threats to their food security and hunting cultures."

Nageak joined 62 other Inuit in Alaska and Canada in 2005 to hold the world's most-notorious polluter accountable. They filed a
petition against the United States with the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights – one of the bodies set up to promote and protect human rights in
the Americas. The petition argues that the impacts of climate change caused by
the US violate the human rights of the Inuit.. The Inuit say their livelihoods, their
spiritual life and their cultural identity are threatened because of the
greenhouse-gas emissions of the United States and the government's failure to curb
the damage.
Today, the Commission is holding a one-hour hearing to investigate the
relationship between human rights and climate change in North and South America.

In a letter to the Commission, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, former director of
the Inuit Circumpolar Council leading the Inuit charge, listed many of the ways
climate change has jeopardized the Inuit way of life: "Because of the loss
of ice and snow, communities have become isolated from one another; hunting,
travel and other subsistence activities have become more dangerous or
impossible; drinking-water sources have been jeopardized; [and] many coastal
communities are already threatened or being forced to relocate."
In a statement to the press yesterday, Watt-Cloutier said, "We
offer our testimony as a warning to humanity that, while global warming has hit
Arctic peoples first, changes are coming for everyone."

Although the Inuit are the first indigenous population to make such a
formal claim, human-rights activists say that as the impacts of climate change
increase, so too will its toll on human life. And with it, they warn, will come
populations seeking redress from the world's big polluters.
I don't think there's any doubt we'll see more of this,"
said David Hunter, a senior advisor of the Center for International
Environmental Law (CIEL). "As the causal link becomes clearer…
between climate change and specific injuries, we're going to see people that
are injured looking for justice somewhere." CIEL, along with the law firm
Earthjustice, worked with the Inuit to submit the petition.

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Growing up in the Arctic, Roy Nageak's
father taught him how to fish and hunt on the ice. Nageak always expected to do
the same for his son, but climate change has made the ice thinner and less
predictable, and the animals and fish they hunt more elusive. Now I have a son who is 18 years old… and I need to let him
learn how to be in harmony with nature," Nageak said. "But without
the ice, the knowledge that was passed on to me from my father… it's not
there." Nageak told TNS that he is frustrated that he "has no
control" over how the rest of the world, particularly the US government,
chooses to operate. Washington has refused to join international commitments to address climate change, and it
has offered only modest attempts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions while making
plans for more coal-burning power plants, a major source of carbon dioxide.

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The US State Department declined to comment.

"It really is an issue of equity," said Michelle Leighton,
director of the Human Rights Program at the University of San Francisco School
of Law. "At the global level, the wealthiest countries have caused the
greatest harm and the poorest – the small island-nation states or
populations in the south of India, or the Inuit – are going to suffer
because of the profits made by the wealthier part of the world."

A 2006 government-commissioned report in the United Kingdom called the Stern
Review predicted that even if global warming is kept to two-degrees Celsius
above pre-industrial levels, or lower, there will still be "serious
impacts" on human life and the environment. For instance, the report
forecast the disappearance of drinking water in the South American Andes and
parts of Southern Africa and the Mediterranean,
and up to 10 million people affected by yearly coastal flooding.

Another
2006 report by the Working Group on Climate Change and
Development, a coalition that includes the World Wildlife Federation
and
Greenpeace, documented that climate change is already affecting
countries in South America. For instance, the group explained how
glacial melt documented in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia will
threaten water supplies and put populations at risk.

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Yifat Susskind, communications director of the human-rights group
Madre, said indigenous groups are most vulnerable to climate change. "A
lot of ancestral territories are some of the most impacted, in part, because
they are some of the most delicate ecosystems that we know, and also because
their economies, cultures and spiritual systems are very directly rooted to the
territory that they live on," Susskind told TNS.Susskind also said that because of the way many societies are
structured, women will suffer most from the impacts of climate change.
"Whenever you have a situation where resources are made scarce –
arable land, clean water, sufficient food – it is usually the women who
sacrifice," she said. "If there's not enough food, it is usually the
women and girls who are going to eat last and least."

The Inuit petition claims that the United States has violated human
rights affirmed in the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of
Man and the American Convention on Human Rights. The petition is urging the
Inter-American Commission recommend that the

United States adopt mandatory
emissions limits and cooperate with the international community on climate
change.
The Inuit are also asking that the United States help them adapt to their
changing environment.
Susskind noted that the Inter-American Commission does "not have
any teeth" and can only make recommendations. Nevertheless, Susskind and
others interviewed by TNS agree that a decision by the Commission linking the US's greenhouse-gas emissions with human-rights
violations would still set an important precedent and give the international
community another tool to pressure the

United Statesover global warming. Susskind and Leighton also said the decision could possibly be used to
bolster lawsuits in the United States. For instance, in 2006, California sued six car
companies in an attempt to hold them accountable for their contributions to
global warming and its effects on the state's environment, economy, agriculture
and public health. A hearing is scheduled for March 6.

Hunter said linking climate change with human rights helps to put a
human face on the problem. "For many years, the debate around climate
change has been a rather obtuse and almost theoretical debate about sea-level
rise and temperature change," he said. "But it's sort of antiseptic
until you put it in the terms of impacts on real people, real cultures and
their way of living – and thus their rights." Should the Commission recognize the human rights aspect of climate
change, Leighton said it would also send a powerful message to the public.
"The American public needs to be aware that what we're doing [to the
environment] doesn't just have some far away environmental impact that maybe
our grandchildren will never see," she said. "It's here. It's on our
continent. It's in our neighbors' backyard, and we are the cause. And we need
to change our way of life."